Posted
by
CowboyNeal
on Saturday October 20, 2007 @10:09AM
from the timing-is-everything dept.

An anonymous reader writes "According to an article on OSWeekly.com, Apple missed a big opportunity by not releasing Leopard soon. They could've taken advantage of Vista's losing streak and one upped Microsoft, the author suggests. 'It's not uncommon for Windows users and technology consumers in general to say that Microsoft missed out on making the most of Vista both before and after its launch. Longtime fans of Windows have changed their tone due to Vista's inadequacies, and regular users are in many cases stuck with trying to figure out why they still can't get certain things to work within the operating system. Granted, it's not a completely horrific OS, but is that even a compliment worth accepting?'"

Windows users will stick with XP, there's no evidence to say that they would give up on Windows and get a Mac. Firstly they would need to buy new hardware, the obvious choice is to go to Linux since you can keep your hardware.

Apple's market share is over 8% now. Those customers are coming from somewhere.

With Parallels you can run Linux on the Mac, and if you don't want to do that but still want Nix software, you can do it. I'm using GIMP, Scribus, Inkscape, Xephem, and other titles I was used to in the Nix world. I've even ran Gnome on top of OSX.

It used to be 6%. Not that the increase isn't insignificant, but all those vista haters aren't moving there. I got a mac recently, but it was more to do with the fact that I've been trying to build something like the macmini for 2 years but haven't come close to getting a cabinet and motherboard of the form factor.

I am guessing that most of the switchers are from the ipod/iphone users, who are curious about apple. Its a shame that their advertisement campaigns do not target this audience - I thought that someone smart would be working in that department.

I don't think the number of "Vista haters" is even a small fraction of what Slashdot thinks it is. Companies aren't movin to Vista because they're conservative, not because they hate it. Consumers generally don't give half a whit, but where they have an opinion at all I wager they'd prefer Vista over XP.

I'm in the fortunate position of having been in the IT trade for over twenty years and never having used a Windows machine for more than half an hour at a time, so my opinion doesn't count for much. But I run the IT for ~1200 employee company, and when XP shipped we had a path beaten to our desks by people demanding XP now, and when for the first few months we re-installed new hardware with Windows 2000 there were threats of violence. I've heard nothing at all from users wanting Vista, and our policy of installing XP SP2 on newly purchased laptops barely evokes comment. Out of the office, in my guise as the go-to guy from friends and family, I've not heard Vista mentioned.

On the other hand, both my parents and my in-laws, all in their 70s, have bought four Macs between them, and in the office I've now got a list of people who wants Macs officially supported along with the unofficial ones that have crept in. With a team of three plus two on the helpdesk support SuSE, CentOS, Solaris and Windows is tough enough, but with Macs on my desk and that of one of my team we ought to give it a go. IMAP, SMTP, Office, a compliant web browser and the Oracle Collaboration Suite client is pretty much the baseline, and it's all there...

I doubt my experience is that uncommon: I've met one "clueless consumer" type that liked Vista. Every other person I've talked to either said

I heard Vista was crap, can I get my computer with XP instead?

or

Vista is junk - my new computer runs slower than my old one with XP on it

or

Vista is hard to use - I can't find any of the stuff I know how to do on XP

Until Dell started offering machines with XP on them, friends and family members of mine that always bought from Gateway or Dell or whoever would ask me (as their "geek advisor") where they could buy a computer without Vista.

I'm not looking for this kind of feedback nor soliciting it. They bring it up on their own.

I don't think the number of "Vista haters" is even a small fraction of what Slashdot thinks it is

I don't know what "Slashdot thinks it is", but if the people in my family -- completely non-technical Windows users -- are in any way representative, it's common knowledge that "Vista sucks". They haven't seen it or used it but they all "know" that it sucks, and that they're better of with XP. The one of my relatives that has Vista would prefer to go back to XP, but he doesn't know how to do that, and is afraid it would void the warranty on his new laptop if he did.

It really looks like Apple is getting momentum lately, although I can't confirm where the momentum comes from... One of my hobbies involved making some tools for assisting a game's map editing and this last year I have been getting much more (by wide percentage) complaints about tools not working in Macs. Really.

It really looks like Apple is getting momentum lately, although I can't confirm where the momentum comes from...

I'm seeing it firsthand from clients, co-workers and people I know. Macs are showing up at accelerating rates in the hands of people who were always classic PC users. Universally, they'll tell you they love their new Macs.

And that's more to do with human nature. People will rather live with a familiar piece of crap, rather than switch to something totally new that may (not) be better. I don't see any sudden shifts in computing, windows is going to be at the helm for a long time, atleast a decade or two more. No, there will not be a year of the linux desktop, there may be a year of the mac desktop.

That said, awareness of apple as a good hardware vendor is increasing. In the end, a very less part of apple's bottom line will be affected by vista. Leopard's timing will not affect this much, in fact I think they made the wise move by releasing it near the holiday season.

Consider that Microsoft had to convince people over several versions of windows to use it over DOS applications. At the same time, Apple and many other vendors lost ground. It is possible to have an OS switch, but it has to be fueled by cost and features.

Apple's have features, but also cost more. I've argued they don't in the past, but with the intel hardware it's getting harder to make that claim. I do think apple makes good hardware, but comparing what I can build versus a mini or even looking at macbooks... it's harder to say apple is that much more. Even if you make a case for better hardware, most PC users don't know it's good. They don't even know the difference between a lowend e-machine and a highend dell.

In order for linux or any other os to take share from windows, it has to overcome the hassle of learning a new system and losing all the software you've used for years. When me and the redhat ceo can't get windows out of our lives, it's hard to tell others to do so. Gaming is the problem with linux conversion.

In order for linux or any other os to take share from windows, it has to overcome the hassle of learning a new system and losing all the software you've used for years. When me and the redhat ceo can't get windows out of our lives, it's hard to tell others to do so.

Familiarity plays a large part but by far the OEM lock-in plays a bigger part especially with new users. People are lazy plain and simple. They aren't going to go through the headache of installing an OS when one comes with the new machine. Microsoft has made it that way and OEMs aren't really pushing for anything different since each new iteration of Windows usually requires new hardware. It's an incestuous relationship. Apple also plays this game with their OS. It is nothing new. Breaking this alliance between the OEM and Microsoft should be a priority for the antitrust oversight board but it simply isn't as evidenced by the extension to the settlement by some State DAs.

Microsoft has made it that way and OEMs aren't really pushing for anything different since each new iteration of Windows usually requires new hardware.

Rubbish. People typically "upgrade" to a new version by buying a new machine, but this is a very different thing to it _requiring_ a new machine. Each new version of Windows is generally baseline usable on what would have been a mid-range to high-end PC 5-6 years earlier.

There is no way anyone can build a home brew computer on par with the top tier OEMs anymore. That wasn't the case 10 years ago but you can't put together a system that compares with the Mac Mini or iMac for that matter.

We bought 3 Mac Minis, 2 with 512MB and 1 with 256MB which was very slowcompared to the others. After buying an inexpensive memory upgrade fromhttp://www.macsales.com/ [macsales.com] I installed it per their online video, and presto,Mac OSX has sufficient memory to run fast..

Anyone out there with MacMinis with 512MB should upgradeASAP as you don't have sufficient memory for OSX to be effective,

We also bought a faster, larger disk for the (former 256MB) MacMini,and easily installed it per online video for another speed boo

I'm a long time Linux user but at work we have to run Windows Apps and VMWare wouldn't cut it on the hardware we have.

My boss bought a Mac for his house, and the other day asked me if I'd be interested in getting one for work as my regularly scheduled upgrade. It will end up costing the company an extra thousand dollars since we'll have to pay the full price for software that we could have gotten practically free with MS PCs, but we're getting two Macs, one for my use (probably in the developer category, in other words, I'll probably break it a couple times) and one for regular use and we'll be paying for VMWare Fusion, Windows XP and Outlook on top of the already fairly high price of getting the two machines. It adds up to costing more than an extra machine, but we're going to try it. We're getting to try it because Vista has been a pain on the half dozen machines we've put it on and the higher ups are starting to realize something is wrong when most of the major software partners we rely on don't support Vista yet.

So, with Linux still seen as too complex for the masses, we're looking for alternatives and Mac fits the bill. If we can test it sufficiently and get it proven to be usable, the possibility of having Macs in a corporate environment open up. It's far from a done deal, but it is possible where it wasn't just two years ago.

I respectfully disagree with the parent, laffer1; it is not games but corporate adoption that will decide whether Vista is the first step in losing the stranglehold that Windows has had on the OS market. People will become familiar with what they have to use at work and will buy the same thing. Macs are finally becoming competitive in features and pricing and once they are adopted in the corporate world, the home user market can follow. If you ask me, Microsoft got their advertising right by targeting the environment that controls the user experience while Mac has been aiming at the home user when that same user will use whatever they are familiar with from work and school. I wish that I could say Linux is ready, and it would do as well or better for me, but it isn't ready for the average worker. Mac, just maybe, might be.

Macs are not replacing Windows PCs, they have become Windows PCs. Buyers no longer have to choose Mac OS X or Windows, they can have both. That is the catalyst that is driving the increased sales.

There is little point in running Linux on the Mac. Mac OS X is a capable *nix box, most FOSS software is not Linux specific and targets Mac OS X as well. Plus Mac OS X has a superior user interface. If someone is running Parallels they are doing so to use Windows XP. Exceptions are rarities such as a developer who needs to do compatibility testing under Linux.

"Macs are not replacing Windows PCs, they have become Windows PCs. Buyers no longer have to choose Mac OS X or Windows, they can have both. That is the catalyst that is driving the increased sales."

That's the main reason I picked up my iMac last year. I was teaching in Korea and had limited space in my tiny apartment, but I needed a new computer. I picked up an iMac because it's so tiny (smaller than a Mac Mini, if you consider the fact that a Mini requires a monitor *and* a box on your desk), installed Windows, and haven't looked back. I could really care less about Tiger or Leopard, but as far as I'm concerned, Apple's doing great things with its hardware.

With a taskbar, I can at a glance see which programs are open as well as which WINDOWS in said programs are open,

Running programs in the dock have an arrow under them (subtle but easy enough to see). Click-hold or right-click on one of them and you'll get a menu of open windows.

However, I'd generally conceed the point: I like the Windows XP GUI a lot - most of the issues are "under the hood": security, everybody running as "root" (or having to confirm every action in Vista), registry decay, drive letters, the "shell" filing system not showing up as files, standards (non)compliance, ahh... where to stop...

And as I've said in other posts, Expose is not an ideal solution. With the taskbar I have an immediate view of all open windows, without any form of interaction. It also encourages a good computing habit in not having a lot of open Windows, since likely I don't need all the windows open.

Expose is not an ideal solution. With the taskbar I have an immediate view of all open windows, without any form of interaction.

Not when you run out of space.

It also encourages a good computing habit in not having a lot of open Windows

Why is that a "good computing habit"?

In short, you *don't* like the Dock, solely because you can't tell which IM window received a message without clicking a button or key, but you *do* like that the Windows task bar is so limited that it requires you to stay under a certain number of open windows (which certainly requires significantly more clicking and effort than clicking a single icon).

How is keeping the number of windows down a "good computing habit"? There's not a lot of point in a fast, high-RAM computer with a massively multitasking OS if you're not going to use it. Why not leave the applications open that you use often? (This is the reason the red button doesn't close out of certain kinds of applications.) It's not like it's hogging memory that I need, and while staring at a splash screen for a few seconds is fun, why should I?

If I'm working with a few windows like you do and want easy access to them all, I'll minimize them to the Dock. If I'm working as I usually do, with 10+ windows, I use Expose. For the life of me, I don't know how the taskbar gives you a "view" of ANY window. It tells you what application it is, if you recognize the icon, and a few cryptic letters about it. In order to get any use out of it, you have to move your mouse down to the button and wait for a litle preview to pop up. Instead of doing that, I can tap a mouse button or a key and get an immediate, live view of ALL the windows I have open and can choose it based on sight, rather than memory of the filename.

You don't consider this a feature, do you? I'd rather be able to choose which media that I use rather than have Apple dictate that I only use certain discs.

I can see it both ways. Sometimes you want to slap in whatever disc you have lying around for a quick burn. For my purposes, I use very high quality media because it's what my clients expect, and it has to last a long time. If I was in the sort of job where that didn't matter, I might think differently. I don't think of it as Apple dictating what di

I can see it both ways. Sometimes you want to slap in whatever disc you have lying around for a quick burn. For my purposes, I use very high quality media because it's what my clients expect, and it has to last a long time. If I was in the sort of job where that didn't matter, I might think differently. I don't think of it as Apple dictating what discs I can use. I think of it as Apple making sure I don't waste my time making unreliable discs that won't last. Garbage in - garbage out.Of course... but if I

Apple's market share is over 8% now. Those customers are coming from somewhere.

My anecdotal evidence: In the last several years of all my friends who use Windows only one had switched to a Mac, despite me being the "computer guy." And now in just the last couple of months seven more have switched. It's been almost spooky.

One had even recently purchased a computer with Vista installed and got so frustrated that he gave it to his son in law and bought an iMac.

With Parallels you can run Linux on the Mac, and if you don't want to do that but still want Nix software, you can do it. I'm using GIMP, Scribus, Inkscape, Xephem, and other titles I was used to in the Nix world. I've even ran Gnome on top of OSX.

What? What does that have to do with anything? Are you from Apple marketing or something? You think we don't know you can run any GTK app on Windows too?

Getting back on topic: "Why didn't Apple release Leopard earlier to capitalize on Vista's poor reception? Apple should hire me so I can decide these things for them. Yes, they really missed an opportunity there, those silly managers at Apple.."

Hmmm, I'm guessing the release coming now, and not months ago, had something to do with Leopard not being ready.
You can say "If HURD 1.0 had been released right after Vista it might have got some extra users", but that doesn't mean the developers can just decide to finish and release HURD 1.0 whenever it plays well against another company's release date.

>>Apple's market share is over 8% now. Those customers are coming from somewhere.

Exactly! But there's more to the number than the statistics would indicate.

In the past three years most of my family switched to a Mac. I switched (desktop and laptop), my college-aged daughter bought a mac, I switched my parents and inlaws, and two of my colleagues switched off their PCs and are now using Macs for everyday work. So that's seven Macs in my immediate circle of family and friends. But only two of them were new machines, the rest were used G4s. The statistics in this review are only counting sales of new computers, so these switchers are "invisible."

However, that brings up a question I've had for some time. It's quite common to hear about people switching from PCs to Macs. What about the other direction?What percentage of people switch from Macs to PCs. I would wager that figure is extremely low.

I'm considering switching back to a PC for my next computer.Why? Because Apple doesn't offer accidental damage protection in their extended warranty, and Dell does. The last two laptops I've owned have ended up with broken LCDs - including the one I'm typing on right now via an external monitor. (Yes, obviously I'm a klutz, but that's something I'm pretty much stuck working around.)

On the other hand, when my little sister recently got a new laptop to go off to college with, I helped her pick out a MacBook.

If people other than tinkerers and enthusiasts are going to change OS, they're going to do so either because they bought a new computer, or because there's something they want to do that they can't now or something that really made them unhappy. That process takes longer than a couple months.

What's really changed with Vista is that people are not willing to be shepherded along from release to release by Microsoft. This is partly due to the Mac's resurgence and more due to a much broader understanding that there are choices. I'd love to attribute that understanding of choices to Linux and open source, but I think that's only had an much of an effect within the developer community. But users more broadly no longer see Microsoft as a miracle-worker for producing these computers that do all sorts of things, because they just expect computers to do the things they do. And many more of them have seen the forced upgrade phenomenon firsthand, and are waiting for a little more bang for their $400. That's reflected in the press with far more writers adopting critical tone towards Microsoft than ever before.

All of the articles we've seen about Apple and missed opportunities (after all this TFA is just some dude at a small website pontificating for an evenings' entertainment) are generally people expressing their desire for David to knock off Goliath and have very little to do with any insights about the market or business opportunities for Apple or Microsoft. To the extent that Apple keeps producing computers that people like and are relevant to what people want to do with them, on terms that are favorable to Apple, their market opportunities are still enormous. And that's almost totally independent of market share - the desktop OS market is simply not an unexploited area in the way it was 15 years ago.

I completely agree. I also think that it can be attributed to a continuing breakdown of the perception that there is a gross incompatibility between Mac users and the rest of the world. While I still do field questions such as "Will I be able to open a Word file someone sends me," they are becoming less frequent. I even hear concern about whether someone with a Mac will be able to receive email from someone with a Windows computer. I think that as the Mac becomes more popular, more people realize that there really isn't a whole lot of compatibility issues for the majority of what they want to do.

> What's really changed with Vista is that people are not willing to be shepherded along from release to release by Microsoft.

I also has to do with the fact that Windows users usually settle for "good enough". And XP is good enough, certainly with SP2, so there is no reason to jump through hoops just to get shiny Vista. At the release of XP, the situation was completely different: the current consumer Windows was ME (pile of crap), and the professional release was 2000, which was very compatible to XP in

Actually, most Windows users are trained to get new hardware when they get a new US. For the average user, the difficulty of a Windows OS upgrade leads to them just junking the old and going to the new.

Apple is capitalizing on this by offering migration services at its Apple Stores. Just drop off the old Mac or PC when you buy a new one, and they will move everything over for you and get it configured right.

I'm not sure how you can say they missed an opportunity until after some initial sales figures and responses come out. It took a while before the non-desire for Vista became apparent. It will take some time before people have a chance to respond (with their wallets) to Leopard.

The should have released it 'on time' regardless if that made it feature-poor and buggy.These comentators don't understand Apple customers. Apple customers value quality. You try to sell them crap and they will eat you alive.

Apple's prime value is in the intangible goodwill of it's customers. Destroying that by releasing buggy crap wouldn't be a good idea.

These comentators don't understand Apple customers. Apple customers value quality. You try to sell them crap and they will eat you alive.

The reality distortion field is strong in this one....

But even stronger in the article. Come on... Joe Average hears about problems in Vista - he's going to look at the Mac, perhaps. Will he understand the differences between Tiger and Leopord - or Jaguar or Krazy Kitten (oops, that's the next Ubuntu release, sorry)?

And who is really not moving towards Vista? It's large corporate systems with millions of dollars invested in a stable XP and little desire to mess with that. That move will be slow but steady. But really slow - probably slower than the 98 to XP move. Witness all of the systems still on 2000.

I may be more of a poster child for a switcher - having used Windows in all flavors and sizes since 3.0. I finally got fed up with the cheapass hardware that laptop manufacturers have tossed out on the market and looked to find something that might, perhaps, get hardware support for more than a year. I've also used Unix since the 1980's and have two Linux boxes at home (well, Ubuntu anyway) - so I'm not adverse to learning another OS. It's still a royal pain to switch if you do anything more complicated than Letters / Browsing / Music.

(Start flames about Apple using cheapass hardware - they do - I just hope they use the SAME cheapass hardware so I can replace it down the line).

the people who are switching aren't switching because of the quality... they're switching because of the shiny. i work in a college IT department and deal with move-in every year. we have a vendor who offers HP business class machines. the reasons i hear people going for apple is because they're prettier. seriously. i had a girl come in with her apple not knowing how to install office, install the virus protection, or how to even eject a CD. she didn't know a thing about her new computer because she b

Apple had a choice, release the new OS X later, and the iPhone when they did, or, delay the iPhone.

I think it should be obvious with the hype that still surrounds that device that Apple made the right choice. Yes, they could have gained some more marketshare, but probably not by much. After all, OS X is already here, just not the latest version.

Apple is entering a market (handhelds) that is likely to be a much larger market than laptops/desktops over the next few years. The iPhone stands a good chance of becoming the market leader in a particular segment. OS X will still be (mostly) a niche player. I hope to see adoption of mac's increase - after all, I own one.

But given the choice, I would opt for the iPhone over OS X just like they did.

It's not like the current version of OS X, Tiger isn't already winning converts. After the pain of buying a new PC with Vista then going through the hassle of getting the reseller to supply a copy of XP and all the time spent installing the older OS, I'd honestly be a bit leery of a following that experience up by buying a Mac with a brand new version of OS X. If people are going to like the Mac experience they will like the current version just fine, if not they'll go back to XP. A new OS isn't going the change the differences in design philosophy between Apple and Microsoft.

In Apple's place I would have delayed a new OS and concentrated on the iPhone too.

Only if you believe Apple's public excuse for Leopard's delay. I don't.

Shifting large numbers of employees around on projects for short periods isn't effective in shortening product cycles. I seriously doubt Apple's claim that it applied the Leopard development team to help deliver the iPhone.

It's more likely that that Leopard simply didn't make internal development milestones and its schedule shifted out. The iPhone excuse is just spin.

As for what I own, I have both an iPhone and Macs. I realize that Apple lies to manipulate its customers and the market just like every other company, though.

You could see the pace of Leopard seeds and the progress you saw in those seeds really slow down while the iPhone was in development and then see the pace pick up as the iPhone was getting ready to hit the shelves.

But it wasn't Vista who won, it was Ubuntu. While I was waiting for Leopard to come out to make my first Mac purchase in 10 years, I tried Ubuntu and stuck with it. Ubuntu somehow became a buzzword at exactly the right time.

However, I did get my wife a Macbook this summer and honestly Tiger is still a big upgrade from XP. It works great! I'm going to upgrade to Leopard just to see the new goodies, even though she might not even notice I did it.

I've been running dual boot XP and Ubutnu (Edgy) on my ADM64. One of these has a future, the other does not. I'm giving the newly released Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon a run through and I'm impressed.
I'm weening myself off Microsoft and have no intention of looking back. The freedom is refreshing.

The lesson from Vista is that releasing a broken and incomplete OS so you can fix it in the field is no longer acceptable. Ignoring your testers complaints on usability and performance issues will no longer get it done. I suspect that the disaster that was Vista's release is one of the things that caused Apple to reassess their Leopard release date.

With that said, it's obvious that the Vista release cycle was a death march from the get go. There's little chance you can jettison that many major features during the development cycle and still end up with a quality release in the end. Killing cool features also kills developer morale and poor morale causes poor quality.

IF Apple could have gotten Leopard out six months sooner it would have been a coup, but it's better that they miss that target than they release the system in the state that beta-testers were reporting it would likely be in if they released on time.

I'm a professional Windows software developer who has been there since Windows 3.0. Windows and Windows APIs are my bread and butter. And you sir, are living in a complete fantasy land.

...the people that 'actually' used Vista for a significant amount of time (i.e. the testers) don't see Vista as the horrible OS that others looking in that haven't used it extensively do.

We beta tested this from alpha to release. It was clunky and busted all along, and it didn't even firm up until the end. Our company still, after dedicating all that effort, will not support running our product on Vista. Which is just as well, since none of our customers, all major financial institutions, are asking for it.

Vista added a lot of architectural changes...

The fact that Vista has revised how its internal subsystems interconnect has had zero impact on the user experience, and your assertation that Vista is faster than XP flies in the face of reality. It is so much slower that we have to reimage all our new computer purchases back to XP because none of our developers will stand to have one on their desk. It literally takes 50% longer to build our entire product tree on Vista than XP. It boggles the mind.

The other big shove Vista has going for it is the migration for development to not only a new set of APIs, but a new concept of development that is as revolutionary as Drag and Drop event based programming made popular with Visual Basic back in 1993.

I'll tell you straight out, no one's going to touch it. No developer in their right mind is going to code to an API that is not backwards compatible to XP. Not going to happen. And in our field of software, financial services, if it doesn't run on W2K, it doesn't ship. Forget shiny, we do not care about shiny. Amateur programmers play with that stuff. Professional programmers code with event horizons of five to ten years. We will not be beta-testing yet another crazy development model from Microsoft. Ask VB6 programmers how well their legacy code bases are doing today. Our company still has mission-critical code written to MFC for God's sake. Do you honestly expect that successful businesses are going to recode their entire product line every time the wind changes in Redmond? We're tired of this crap.

Vista also added enough new features... more than XP...more than Leopard, which makes Leopard look like a catch up OS...

Now here, you're just deluding yourself. Vista announced plenty of features and FAILED to deliver on damn near every single one. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of one single feature Vista introduced that was not already available in OSX by the time Vista shipped. WinFS? Didn't happen. Aero? Meet OSX Quartz. Successfully implemented and delivered on time. Full system indexing and searching on Vista is a dog. Ever tried Spotlight on OSX? You don't even it notice it's there. Look at the underlying designs for both and you can see why.

Pick almost any Leopard feature and Vista has the feature, and architecturally there is no 'killer' feature of OS X that Vista cannot implement via 3rd part support.

Which is just another way of saying, Vista has some features and doesn't have the others.

On the other hand Vista has technologies that OS X, Linux, etc don't have yet and won't have for several years.

Name one.

Until OS X or Linux can handle and pre-emptively multi-task GPU operations...

I think if you talk to the Core Video, Core Audio, Core Animation, and Core Whatever-the-heck developers at Apple, you'd find that you're talking out of your ass. As for Linux, who cares. If they cared about that kind of thing, they'd have implemented it.

On Vista you can run several CAD/High End graphical applications under the Aero interface and not lose performance in any of the applicat

Not to be a dick, but you 'claim' to be a Windows developer, yet your post is riddled with simple errors...

There were no errors. You choose to make distinctions that more experienced programmers simply gloss over as uninteresting, and I dismissed them out of hand.

that even a novice Windows or novice Vista user would call you out on...

Let them try. I'm on vacation right now, so I can't promise to respond, but given your initial argument, I figure any refutation you bring would be trivially shot down, so I'm content to let other people do the actual research.

I am not going to take time to correct your post...

You should have. That was the only opportunity you had bolster your argument.

I just don't have the time to educate people when they are so mis-informed or intentionally are trying to mislead people.

I'm on vacation, and I just corrected your intentionally misleading post.

You keep referencing OS X as the 'shining' example of a 'good' OS...

I did not, and I do not code to OSX.

Let's take one: You say Aero=Quartz...

Aero and Quartz are popular names for the respective display rendering technologies. You're asking for a level of detail that is irrelevant to the scope of this thread. If we were going to seriously get into it, I'd have you explain how Aero doesn't use double-buffering for 99.9999999% of the windows applications out there today. Then you can explain how any new-fangled application that doesn't answer to WM_PAINT and make GDI calls like the rest of the world can be expected to run on XP. When you're done with that, speculate as to why calling QuickDraw is any different from calling the Win32 GDI. If you honestly believe that Aero takes all those MoveTo, LineTo, FillRect, and DrawText calls and turns them magically into vector graphics, you need to check again.

...and it IS FASTER than XP because Vista smart caches the libraries...

I don't buy it. If the library is on the disk, you still have to load it into memory. If you cache the data so you don't have to load it again, so what, any operating should be able to do that. That's why you have so much RAM, so the file-system can cache pages. If that was a serious issue, we'd put the libraries on a RAM disk.

Superfetch is also why large application like VS or AI open 5-10x faster because it is a 'smart' caching system, and our developers like the fact the applications load and run faster.)

So what you're saying is, you're pre-loading a bunch of stuff, wasting valuable memory in the process, and this is somehow better. How about this instead: provide APIs and technology that makes it possible to write code that doesn't require loading 50MB of dynamic libraries before giving the user control.

You basically bypassed the entire argument, and went on about nothing at all. I'm declaring victory and going out for a beer. I don't really care what you do.

On a final note before I go, everyone here knows what disk caching is. But if your build is disk-bound, then pre-caching does nothing for you. You still have to load the data.

As for the display issues, it seems like you know enough to be dangerous, not enough to use it constructively. Unlike you, I recognize everyone's accomplishments in the field. You're too busy being amazed by stuff that I find unremarkable and not unique. Just for kicks, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS [wikipedia.org]. That idea is so old it farts dust.

You want real world examples? Let me go on and on about Vista and what EDS, IBM, NASA, Lockheed Martin, GM and even EDS Europe thinks of Vista...

I think they should speak for themselves. And IBM didn't seem to think that highly of it. Makes me wonder about the rest.

I'm sure your developers and IT people are far smarter than the average person at EDS or Lockheed...

It's possible that we might be... who knows. We have our share of chumps and yes-man, but our senior developers are all world-class. Some of us consider reverse-engineering the Windows kernels to be entertainment. Some of us turn out multi-million dollar products in a month that would have taken lesser teams years. I don't know if that makes us smart or just very capable.

I bet they understand computers better than my colleagues at NASA as well...

Well, better than you, anyway.

I get so tired of 'my experience' is the greatest and represents the world crap...

What other experience do you think possibly matters to me, my company, and my clients? It was your so-called experience that was so far out of line with virtually the entire world's experience that prompted me to reply in the first place. The only other possibility was that you're just a troll. Unfortunately, you know more about the underlying technology than a troll which makes you worse, an amateur with a big mouth.

Who the hell cares about overclocking a GPU?! Further, why would/should this be a necessary thing to do?!That's great that you can preempt the GPU... I guess. Somehow linux and OSX manage to duplicate most of vista's "shiny new" graphic effects without preempting the GPU, so either linux and OSX are better designed or this is just one more useless "feature" from MS.

Most of the world (read everyone but hardcore gamers) use computers for real work. My mom isn't going to care that her GPU got preempted whil

Many claims are made in the above post but no numbers or specific citations. I am sensitive to this as an audio dev.

But since Audio seems to be important to you, Vista is the best consumer level OS for Audio/Video, as it implements the most robust Audio stack with realtime sync features that have only been seen in BeOS to date.

Could you be more specific? On OS X (since 10.2) CoreAudio has supported internal audio streams at arbitrary sample rates (any number that can be represented in a 64-bit float) and with up to 32 bit floating-point samples (the default mixers are actually deeper internally). All streams in the system are synchronized to the sample and streams may be linear-PCM, AC3 and all manner of MPEG

Instead, Leopard wasn't set to be released right near the time of Vista's release, and Apple wasn't going to hurry the process along more than they had to. In fact, we're all now waiting for Leopard's release in October, and this is largely due in part to the need for key members of the OS X team to finish up work on the iPhone so that it could hit store shelves on June 29th.

That's what Apple said, but people who were on the beta were saying that Leopard wasn't likely to be ready on time already, that it was way less stable and mature than Tiger and Panther had been at a similar point. And Apple has been known to dissemble, perhaps not outright fibbing but certainly exaggerating minor issues and not even mentioning major ones... so I still think this explanation should be taken with a pinch of salt.

My guess is that Apple, at all costs, wanted to avoid doing what Microsoft did and completely disenchanting their user base by releasing a half-finished OS.

That's what I think the real reason was. If Leopard had been on track for the expected 18-month release cycle in mid-2006 it would have been pretty solid by the time they started on the iPhone, with a late 2006 or early 2007 release. The mid-2007 "non-slipped" date was already 2 years after Tiger.

"With all things considered, did Apple make a serious mistake by delaying Leopard's release until October? I don't think so."

This seems mostly a case of a poorly punctuated column headline. Given the author himself concludes Apple made the right choice in the face of limited resources, a more clear headline would have been "Leopard's Release Date a Serious Mistake?"

I only have to ditch my PC and get a MAC when my XP/2003 is working just fine. I doubt it.

The problem with Vista is it offers no compelling features for Windows users. XP/2003 run reliably and offer the widest range of applications. The ONLY thing MS has with Vista is exclusive DX10 games. And there are no compelling upgrade reasons even for most gamers.

The author poses a hypothetical question that he knows will get the fanboys riled up: "Did make a mistake?". And the disputes his own question saying "No they didn't".
This whole "article" is a troll and should be ignored.

I agree completely, at least with the last part of your comment. Right now Apple has a product for every part of the market *except* the market that most home consumers are in. Consider that Dell sells a number of machines aimed at a home market that run for between $400 and $1000 for a complete system. Apple has absolutely nothing in that price rance except the Mac Mini, which is hardly a capable machine with its slow hard drive. Apple badly needs a small tour unit that can come to between $800 and $1000 with a monitor! Until then they are missing out on a huge market that thinks the iMac is too expensive for them, and the Mac Mini isn't enough computer. And actually the Mac Mini is really expensive too, for what it is. No keybard, no mouse, no monitor, all for about $500-$600. I'm the first to say that when you compare laptops, or even iMacs to business workstations, Apple is the same price or cheaper. But not so for the home market, one dominated by cheap whitebox PCs and Dells. I'm not going to suggest that Apple sell OS X for non-Apple harware. Just that Apple needs to start addressing the needs of this market in terms of hardware. I know of half a dozen close friends and relatives who would have bought Apple had Apple actually had something available.

The Mac mini is capable enough for Granny or Aunt Ethel or Junior and Missy, which is the market that it is largely pitched to. It's intended as a "second computer" for the kids or as a first computer for "seasoned citizens."

As it turns out, the MacBook is the Mac most people are buying. It is a competitive laptop to all but the bargain-basement craptops that Dell, Lenovo and HP sell. Get beyond the loss-leader "hacked by Chinese" craptops and you will find that MacBook is pretty damn competitive with the competition's lappies.

And also, Mac OS X Tiger tends to run better on less RAM than Vista. So people go to, say, Fried Electronics, mess with a midrange lappie or desktop hobbled by Vista, then go check out the MacBook and feel the difference. If the track record is any indication, Leopard will be faster than Tiger on new and 1-2 year old hardware. It might suck on G4s but that's the outside realm of the machines that can run Leopard.

But that Mac mini has something the Dell doesn't: an easy to use, largely exploit-free operating system. (note I didn't say completely exploit-free: there are holes in the default install of Mac OS X, and there no doubt will still be some in X.5) Compare that to Vista, which although improved is still a security nightmare. Consider also that chances are that Dell will not have enough RAM to run Vista properly, so it will be a usability nightmare.

You're assuming that people actually care about a lot of these differences.

Correct, that is the assumption.

I don't see this, people buy the iMac because it's an Apple machine, not because it's an all-in-one form-factor.

Which is exactly what I said. All-in-one is not a unique feature (though rare), but it is part of an overall design that appeals to the target audience. The beauty of Mac is that the design doesn't end at the case (there are quite a few wonderful PC cases out there), but goes from hardware to operating system to application software. And that is what people are very willing to pay a premium for, because you just can't get it anywhere in the PC market.

One of the main reasons Vista has been so maligned is because it was ridiculously late and Microsoft was desperate to save face... so they started stripping out promised features and shipped it before it was truly ready. The bad reviews were legion. Word of mouth has spread. Even non-technical people have heard of Vista's bad reputation... I've lost count of the posts I've seen on here where someone mentions their surprise that their mom or whoever remarked something on the order of, "Vista? Isn't that the bad one?"

By holding Leopard back until they were sure it was ready, Apple has laid the groundwork for an even bigger opportunity. There are a lot of people out there who flat out don't like or don't want Vista. Delayed or not, if Leopard gets good reviews in the media and the word of mouth is positive, that's going to give a nice boost to Mac sales.

The people who have been waiting for Vista with baited breath, and would never switch to OS X. Who may not be 100% happy with Vista but will say it will get better with time and is still better in some ways than XP.

The people who are on the fence. Long time window users who are upset with Vista. Who will simply switch to XP who you really couldn't get to switch to OS X if you paid them. I am guessing business users make up a large group of these people.

The third and final group is a hodgepodge. People who just use the OS that comes with the computer, and are getting more and more fed up with Vista. In this case, the time would actually help Apple. Those people who are at wits end [abxzone.com] with Vista, demanding XP [blorge.com]. Would potentially love nothing more than to jump ship completely. Given people's general uncomfortableness with technology in general. Jumping ships to a new platform is not without great hesitation, regardless of their angst at MS. I think this is why we see market share of Linux increasing, albeit slowly.

I think with the delay of OS X, and the change in name, and the release of the iPhone SDK, Apple has chosen where future growth will lie. They will likely keep making computers, laptop for consumers and towers for pro content creation, but small high profit consumer devices are the future.

If anything, Apple has decided that 5% of the computer market is all it will have, and little it does will displace the PC from corporate, the only way it can get much more than 10%. However, with good consumer toys, it can be the home electronics supplier for those with disposable incomes.

First of all, it's impossible for Apple to time their releases to coincide with Microsoft's release, since MS was stuck in a cycle of delays that ran about six years. Secondly, Tiger is already more than a match for Vista, and finally, just by sheer luck, Leopard arrives on the scene as people are realizing just how utterly mediocre Vista really is.

Sounds like a fanboy was pissed he couldn't get Leopard back in July. Apple made the right decision by delaying the release of Leopard. Several people on boards I frequent were beta testers and were very vocal in letting everyone know that Leopard was not a "finished" product back then. They would've released something incomplete just like M$; not a good idea.
I would say that the only thing Apple lost out on was orders for the new imac/macbooks since many of us were waiting until we were sure that we'd either get Leopard installed or qualify for the updater at a reduced price.
I'm definitely happy I bought my new imac at the beginning of October. And yes, it really is that much better than Windows..

NeXTstep 1.0 was released in 1989. Max OS X is a descendant of NeXTstep and is still missing a few features that NeXTstep had in 1989. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEXTSTEP [wikipedia.org]

Arguably, the only features Mac OS X has added prior to 10.5 have been dubious compatibility with ancient Mac applications and lots of eye candy. OK. To be fair, Apple has evolved OS X to be more than NeXTstep (particularly for programmers) and to use the current hardware that is at least 64x faster than the old NeXT hardware. Sadly N

...are not like you and me. They'll never try out an OS just to "check it out" like we might when there's a new distro that's supposedly better. The very last thing that Apple wants are Windows users that are finally convinced to switch, then find out that this sucks and has almost as many issues as Windows, only to move back. Not only have you probably lost them for the next 5-10 years, you'll probably get a lot of anti-marketing "Yeah, I tried a Mac a few years ago, it was all overhyped so don't believe them" that'll mean others won't bother at all.

IT geeks haven't got as much marketing power as we think. Oh, I can go on about the advantages of Linux all day but most of them people will think "sure, for him it might work". Vanity works much better, like "Hey Bill could do it, and I'm at *least* as good with computers as him". Same goes the other way around, if you hear someone "like you" giving something a bad review, you'll pay attention. That's just the way it works in all markets, and makes plain old sense. If you want to do print work, you don't read a webdesigner's review of GIMP you read a print worker's review. And with that perspective it makes perfect sense for Apple to wait until it's ready.

According to an article on OSWeekly.com, Apple missed a big opportunity by not releasing Leopard soon. They could've taken advantage of Vista's losing streak and one upped Microsoft, the author suggests.

OSWeekly sounds as if Leopard is the first OS Apple is about to release. Tiger is for most practical purposes just as good OS as Leopard. Leopard is a gradual improvement.

Plus it only is starting to become obvious in the recent 2-3 months how many problems Vista (still) has. The announcement of XP SP3, the oddly early Vista SP1 in Q1 2008, the extended OEM XP support period, the Vista-to-XP downgrade new policy.

And Leopard is here right for the holidays. I'd say, timing is as good as it could be. Perfect-storm-like good.

I started out as a pre-judged Vista hater. When I got my new laptop (XPS 1330) I decided to give it a go anyway rather than just downgrading to XP. I'm glad - it's actually quite nice, and IMO a real step up from XP unless you have incompatible apps.

Vista's honestly not that bad. Quite nice in some areas. I've had no serious app compat issues - but then I only really use OSS apps, and those tend to be well behaved anyway since they're usually portable, and tend to be quickly updated for new platforms.

I find the UI a small but significant improvement, and I'm already in love with the indexing service's integration with the rest of the OS. Yes, mac users, I know about spotlight - I admin macs at work.

I'd also say that fears about battery life _on_ _new_ _hardware_ with the latest generation of mobile GPUs are somewhat overblown. I don't see a huge difference between Aero on and off - much as I see relatively little difference (1/2 an hour out of this laptops 4 1/2 at most) from activating Compiz on Ubuntu. I'm not even sure there's any effect at all, since whatever difference there is is well within the measurement inaccuracy of any battery testing.

It's not some huge leap forward - it's more like what Apple does between two Mac OS X releases (including the breakage of apps with rather hacky innards that people yell about - try admining a DTP lab with Adobe and Quark products and tell me how much you love Mac OS X updates). What it is, though, is a _lot_ of small and medium improvements rolled up into what I'd call an overall much better OS.

I'd feel pretty ripped off if I'd paid to upgrade from XP - but as a new OS it's quite nice. I don't find the UAC stuff annoying (though it was a HORROR in prereleases apparently) though I do think it's a waste of time that'll just get people clicking the dialogs without even thinking.

As it is, I find Vista much more usable than XP already. It took me a few hours to get used to some of the differences (and I still hate the control panel UI in "new mode" - though I'm sure it's OK for non-technical users) but it's now quite nice to use. I tend to switch between it and Ubuntu on my new laptop, depending on task.

First, Apple doesn't need to release Leopard to stay ahead of Microsoft or one-up them. OS X 10.2 was already better than Vista, and was better than Windows XP for that matter.

Second, until Apple starts selling OS X for generic x86 hardware, they're not competing directly with microsoft; they're selling a competing platform. That OS X now runs on Intel isn't relevant; it's still locked down to run only on approved, official Apple-branded Intel hardware. They're not competing with Microsoft for a share of the desktop/notebook *OS* market; they're competing with Dell, HP, Asus, eMachines, etc. for the desktop/notebook *platform* market.

Apple sells complete solutions, not operating systems. The day Apple decides to go toe-to-toe against Microsoft and releases an OS X that you can install on any OEM or homebuilt x86 box, then we'll see how they compete against Microsoft. My guess is, provided they have the driver support, they'll beat Microsoft silly, no contest. The driver support is, however, a major issue, and a non-trivial one.

When you title your article "Leopard's Release Date a Serious Mistake" it's a bit weak to say in the last paragraph of the article:

"With all things considered, did Apple make a serious mistake by delaying Leopard's release until October? I don't think so."

This isn't even an opinion, it's just a sensationalist, uninformed headline we've already read, with nothing backing it up, not even the author. What a waste of time.

-The Great Google gPhone Myth [roughlydrafted.com] - Pundits have seized upon rumors of a new mobile phone product from Google as their golden ticket for bashing the iPhone. The "gPhone" is the perfect foil for fear-based rumormongers because it's a secret Google han't said much about publicly. That lets the wags blow it out of proportion and stretch it into an iPhone Killer. They're wrong, here's why.

Microsoft has more software engineers than Apple has employees. Apple is not the problem here. Leopard is not the disappointment.

Tiger is already much better than Vista, nobody who is running Tiger is suffering. People who bought a new Mac after Tiger shipped and have been running it since were never bothered by Vista, their productivity and satisfaction are high. Mac sales are already up on the strength of the hardware, Tiger, and Intel-compatibility which gives a switcher a way to back out of Mac OS X if they want to return to Windows or Linux on the same hardware. If you have a Mac you are not switching to Vista. If you have Windows, Leopard is not preventing you from switching.

The only part this theory gets right is that Leopard will be huge. It has improvements for everyone in the community. It has more graphical sophistication, it's a better Unix, it has built-in automatic backup and versioning, it's fully 32/64-bit compatible and inherently multiprocessor. It's one DVD for the whole world that installs and runs full-featured on all Apple computers with a 1 GHz or faster processor and 512 MB or better of RAM, so it will be easy to upgrade from a previous Mac OS X and a lot of people will do that. It will be the only OS available on new Macs right away and many people will take that as a good opportunity to get either their first Mac or their first Intel Mac. Leopard also has a matching pocket version which starts at $299 and comes on a touchscreen iPod instead of a DVD. It's going to be popular.

Compare the $399 Vista Ultimate DVD with the $399 iPod touch 16GB for both technical merit and consumer excitement. Which of these should a Windows XP user spend their money on? Which will they get more value from. It's laugh out loud.

Apple already has a Mac and iPod version of OS X, what if they made a generic PC version of OS X and licensed it to Intel and it shipped with every compatible 64-bit Intel EFI motherboard for $50 extra? Then PC manufacturers would get the boom in sales that they wanted from Vista, and people would finally have a good reason to buy a new Sony or HP computer, to go instantly into next-generation processor, firmware, core OS, Web and audio/video standards, 3D interface, and enjoy the real Photoshop finally. What if Apple licensed it to Google? What if they offered it for sale to people who already have a PC? These are the opportunities for Leopard, not beating Vista to market.

Finally I have to say that delaying a PC operating system by a few months because you shipped the pocket version is about the best excuse ever. Hard to see the cloud for the silver lining with that one. This article was trying, though.

People that buy apple products aren't technical enough to know if leopard is better than any past build revision of FreeBSD that apple leeched. They buy apple because it looks cute and they can remain oblivious to technology. The author is a clueless monkey if he thinks people suddenly want to buy apple crap because it's build 10.3.1.

That's a comment that makes sense only to someone who's entire OS life is spent underneath a command prompt. FreeBSD while an important part of X is only part of the foundation. It's everything else that's on top and underneath that makes the OS something other than a gearhead toy. And since when is making use of Open Source some sort of moral crime? Apple makes it's acknowledgements and last time I checked it's changes are open sourced back in the form of Darwin. Have you tried Darwin and made any real comparison? Or are you just some Linux Nazi who is lashing out with unsubstantive bile for the simple reason that it's not Linux. If so, you're no different than Mac Nazis, or Windows Nazis, or Amiga Zombies that still think there's a future for that last platform, you're acting from unreason.

To be fair, Apple has been snakebit a number of times by lappie power supply/battery issues. Let's see, there was the PowerBook 5300 a la flambe incident, the PB G3 power supply that tended to have sparking issues, the full-of-lose "UFO" PB/iBook power supply that tends to die after a while thanks to power cord shorting issues, the expanding LiPoly batteries in the later iBooks, the MacBook and the MacBook Pro, and now the Mag Safe adapter issue.

However, they are not alone. How many lappies were recalled over Sony LiIon/LiPoly cell issues? How many other lappie manufacturers have recalled their power supplies? How about that ThinkPad 600-series charging circuit that kills batteries?

I fully expect to have an in-warranty replacement of the MagSafe power supply. This is the reason why nobody should buy an Apple lappie without AppleCare. I would give the same advice to anyone who buys anyone's lappie. Go for the extended warranty, go for the manufacturer's extended warranty if it is offered but the store's extended warranty if the manufacturer doesn't offer one. This is one time when it's smart to do so.

Not in my experience. I have never heard that Steve Jobs has been throwing any chairs around, or threatened to cut off someone's air supply, or similar.

Most of the users are self-indulgent, arty, smug, pretentious types.

In my experience (and I know quite a few of them) that is utter bullshit.

The average person wants nothing to do with this.

Don't take your average pimpled PC sales person or IT man with a hate for end users as "average person".

The real question is, if Apple got all of these people to start running a desktop UNIX, what can Linux do to follow that lead?

The usual answer is: Don't follow the lead. Change the rules. No idea how Linux should go about this vs. Apple, but then there are ten times more Windows users, and they are ten times more unhappy with their OS than Mac users, so maybe Linux should concentrate on beating Windows.

The only way for Apple to make a dent is to start the long road of releasing Mac OS for standard wintel hardware.

This will not happen until MS's monopoly market share is seriously weakened or broken completely. Look, MS has monopoly influence for desktop OS's. Trying to compete with them means expending more resources than they do, for the same amount of gain. It's just bad business. Every company that has tried has failed. MS's monopoly allows them to introduce artificial problems with their competitor's products. It is simply a losing proposition.

Apple has taken the classic route of dealing with the monopoly by bypassing it with a complete, vertical supply chain. By bundling OS X (their real innovative product) with their hardware, they put themselves in competition with Dell, Gateway, Lenovo, and Toshiba, none of whom have a monopoly that can be leveraged against them. While MS can arbitrarily break compatibility with OS X, Dell has no such ability. Sure they can make up nonstandard connectors for hardware, but unless they can get Gateway, Lenovo, and Toshiba on board as well it won't hurt Apple as much as Dell.

Apple would be stupid to un-bundle OS X and their hardware at this point. Slowly eating away small bit of market share and hoping others will do the same is their only viable business model. Maybe if they ever get to 30% share or thereabouts the situation will change. I know everyone wishes Apple would do this because they want to be able to buy the OS separately, but the likely cost is Apple going out of business or canceling their OS entirely. If you truly want to buy OS X for generic x86, the best bet is to hope the courts will actually break up MS's monopoly at which point the market will force Apple to unbundle to remain competitive. Otherwise, be prepared or a very long wait for this, if it ever happens.